No description available.

The purpose of this study is to describe and interpret young children's shared narrative construction and story acting practices within an early childhood visual arts program. Narrative and story acting offer children unique opportunities to explore ideas, thoughts, and questions. Listening to children and trying to understand their perspectives, thought processes, and experiences is a necessary and vital way of illuminating our understanding of curriculum practice. Based on the researcher's kindergarten art workshop program, this inquiry specifically addresses: (a) What is the context (the structure and organization) of the shared narrative process to be studied? (b) What are the major themes that emerge in the children's small group narrative? (c) What does this collection of narratives tell about what these particular kindergarten students feel and think about their world? This study provided an ethnographic-type account of the young children's co-constructed narratives in response to works of art. The study included 18 children from a private Montessori school in the northeast. The kindergartners worked in three separate small groups of six. Each group took part in 9 sessions. The children ranged in age from 4.9 to 5.9 years old. The primary methodology is that of participant observation. The design of this project is exploratory, descriptive, and interpretive in nature. The data in this study was gathered via audiotape and observational field notes. Data analysis primarily consisted of reviewing field notes to identify themes, patterns, events, and actions in the children's narrative activities as well as to generate working hypotheses. The application of the coding system by Wolf (2002) aided classifying co-constructed conversational sequences in order to allow the frequencies of each category to be calculated and compared. Analysis consists of the three aspects of data transformation advanced by Wolcott (1994). This ethnographic research emphasized the importance of listening to children's voices.

Previous research does not address the integral role art plays in early childhood education and preschool teachers and providers are rarely trained to teach art creatively. This study presents a framework for training early childhood providers in the developmental and psychological aspects of early childhood art, and the methodology of formulating and teaching creative art activities. The study assessed the effectiveness of this training in changing attitudes and behaviors of preschool teachers and day care providers, regarding the value of art for the young child and methods of teaching art to children. The sample was composed of 73 preschool teachers, assistant teachers, and family day care providers in Western Massachusetts. The treatment group received training in creative art activities. Both groups were administered pre- and post- tests regarding attitudes towards children's art, a demographic survey and a researcher-designed preschool and day care questionnaire. After the training the subjects' styles of teaching art to young children were observed and evaluated. The treatment group completed an evaluation of the training, a self-evaluation form and participated in post- training interviews. The effectiveness of the training program was confirmed by the evaluations. Subjects found the training was important to their professional growth. Statistical findings reveal significant differences for 11 of the 23 items on the Likert-type attitude pretest and posttest. Non-significant findings show a change in the expected direction for almost all items. Although the control group also showed change on some items, their change was always smaller than that of the treatment group. The data showed that overall, educational level made no difference in participants' attitudes towards the value of children's art. The methodology and behavior of teaching art by treatment group subjects were more effective than the control group. When observed, treatment group subjects displayed a smaller percentage of dictated art activities. Both groups displayed an equal percentage of creative art activities in their facilities. The results of this study indicate the importance of teaching art creatively with an awareness of the developmental and psychological implications for preschool children. It depicts positive implications for future research.

No description available.

This research looks thoughtfully and deeply at the relationship between art education and signs, as defined by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1964/1998). Signs, as articulated by Deleuze (1964/1998), are violent disruptions to our way of understanding the world, causing us to think again and/or re-consider what we once knew (or thought we knew). This study looks generatively at how these kinds of disruptive and disorienting moments might be mined for possibilities in art education and remind us of our own relationality. As a post-qualitative lived inquiry, it asks how might art education be-with apprenticeship to signs and what might art education do-with sign-encounters? Using the theoretical lens of transcendental empiricism and new materialism, this study considers how art educators might hold open the space of sign-encounters for oneself and one's students by turning towards the rhizomatic cut and staying with uncertainty. It is focused on the doing-with, making-with, and thinking-with of art, pedagogy, and philosophy/theory, investigating their deep entanglements in spaces of disruption and ultimately developing frame-works for engaging in this kind of work in the classroom. Drawing from Erin Manning and Brian Massumi's theory of research-creation, this research was experienced in an emergent, layered, and complex way over the last two years, including the construction of this dissertation presented as an assemblage all of its own.

This work is concerned with volume as presented in a painting. The investigation begins with a painting of drawn geometric shapes. Each successive painting problem explores additional facets of variations from this basic problem. There is a total of six painting problems. The general intent of these problems is to investigate the following in regard to volume of experience: color contrast in hue, value, intensity, proportion and complement pattern variations the color phenomenon of simultaneous contrast The medium is acrylic polymer emulsion applied with brush on stretch canvas.

No description available.

This study explores the nature of the visual creative process of an artist. Most of the literature is secondary and seems only to meet the needs of the writer, critic or publication. This is a limited study, because as an artist I created a body of work on the Macintosh computer to track the creative process. Because of this special subjectivity, my project was intensely personal, dealing with my own feelings, memory, and psychological makeup. Though limited, the study does, nevertheless, add to the literature about the creative process. I have choosen the Holocaust-- an historical event because its scale and its particular horrors, touch all people. I shared my art work with Holocaust survivors, and asked them for responses. Their responses were a crucial part of my research. In this way I hope to broaden knowledge about the impact that the visual arts have, and how that impact happens. Finally, this research has pedagogical implications to help define the creative process in the visual arts. My own creative process, noted by me, served as a model of one possible way the visual creative process works, and this model was useful in leading students to uncover their own processes.

This study was concerned with the description of nine college studio art instructors' aesthetic beliefs as exhibited in personal art style and ranking of aesthetic beliefs, compared to the content of their class critiques. The review of related literature provided a system for analysis and description of art works and aesthetic beliefs in three principal styles or trends: Formal Order, Expression, and Imagination.

Research has shown that the use of technology in curriculum, and art classrooms in particular, can benefit students. This thesis outlines these benefits which include the potential for technology to make learning more personal, assist students in their future careers, and allow opportunity for collaboration. Still, several obstacles impede the full-fledged realization of that potential, often leading teachers to avoid or ignore technology in their pedagogical strategies. This thesis addresses these obstacles and provides practical and theoretical solutions. Once these obstacles are overcome, teachers will be better able to incorporate new technology in their lessons, such as social media, podcasts, open-source websites, and online programs. As an example of art teaching that uses technology, this thesis also provides a sample lesson plan for secondary students, incorporating elements of interactive Web technologies that have been recommended by art education scholars.